Africa takes lead in mobile revolution

Africa’s top banking and mobile phone executives assembled in Nairobi recently to listen to the counsel of one of the world’s leading technology companies. “Software is the manufacturing of the future,” IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty told them. Should this prove to be the case, it might mitigate one of the continent’s chief economic conundrums – how to sustain growth and spread its benefits without the factories that have typically fuelled big leaps in other developing economies.

In most African countries the road, rail and port infrastructure is in need of heavy upgrading if their economies are to become more competitive. But the speed with which the continent has built telephony networks and embraced mobile has taught the rest of the world much about Africa’s potential. Mobile phone subscriptions have risen to 475 million from 90 million in sub-Saharan Africa within seven years. Their spread has changed not only the nature of communication but the state of banking, commerce and investment on the continent. The phone has become so essential that people skip meals so as to be able to afford scratch-card credit for it.